Game of Thrones - Noteable differences between the book and the show so far (chock full of spoilers)

Cafe Society
21

[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
There was another piece that I hate they removed, because it demonstrates so much both about Lyssa and about why Bronn won: in the book, when the knight showed up for the fight, Lyssa unexpectedly gifted him with Jon Arrys’s sword, smirkingly saying how fitting it would be for Jon’s murderer to be slain by Jon’s own sword. The knight is appalled that he’ll be forced to fight to the death using an unfamiliar (and highly ornamented) blade; Tyrion, by contrast, is quite pleased.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I agree…and in the end it was that sword that snapped when the knight went into a last furious attack (I think he hits a statue with it and it breaks). Also, they didn’t get into Cat’s private musings thinking about the long ride and running fight through the hills where Bronn is pretty key and demonstrates over and over his skill and cunning…nor her musings that Bronn is almost surely going to win.

Nor do they get into her disgust with the whole farce of a trial or her disgust and fury at her sister…nor how her uncle, the Blackfish feels pretty much the same way.

-XT

22

Yeah, i know its because of the budget and i am REALLY hoping they are just saving their money so they can do justice to big important battles like the battle of the blackwater which should be incredible to see on film.

23

Show Lysa is far, far too thin. And I wish they’d show her relative stupidity when compared to Cat - this was a big part of the book, both in discussions between the two sisters, internal monologues, and discussions between Cat and the Blackfish.

Unlike a lot of people, I really like the actress they cast as Catelyn. I think she is lovely, and looks like what I feel a mid-30s medieval lady might look like - a little worn, but still quite pretty. It seems I’m alone in this - most people seem to think she looks like a hag.

24

You aren’t alone…I like the actress that plays Cat as well, and I also pictured her much like this woman from the book. She is tough, smart, a bit worn but still pretty, and she has a edge to her. She is a tough character to really like in either the book or the series for her blind hatred of Jon, and some of the stuff she does later on doesn’t really help her to become more sympathetic, but still one of my favorite characters.

-XT

25

I agree with you. She wasn’t what I had pictured Cat to be at first, but I have warmed considerably to her. I like her face a lot, too, and she’s a very talented actor.

26

Forgot to add – the Hound seems much less intimidating and grim in the TV version. He’s just this quiet lurking shadow here, and I thought it was interesting how Rory McCann played him as embarrassed after he “won” the tourney. That may have been in the books – I don’t remember – but he just seems more withdrawn and reserved in the show than full of dire bitterness and stewed-upon hatred.

I don’t necessarily mind this change, either, although I do think it’s a shame he’s had such little screen time.

27

That brings up a good point on another change though. In the series, Littlefinger tells Sansa the story of the Hound and his brother and the burning. In the book, however, it’s the Hound himself that tells her in one of those glimpses into the inner workings of the Hound and how he feels about things…and how he feels about Sansa.

-XT

28

Just finished A Game of Thrones the other day, so these stick out to me…

Not Ned’s. Ned’s is consistently described as a closure for his cloak, and while, flipping through the book, I can’t find a specific description of what it looks like, when he resigns, it’s described as ‘the ornate silver hand that is the badge of his office’ and when Robert makes him take the position again, he threatens to ‘pin it on Jaime Lannister’. So, while Martin may not have been thinking of exactly the design they used for the show, it’s certainly a brooch with a single hand.

Only two of them. When Robb accuses Osha of being an oathbreaker, she points out that she wasn’t, and couldn’t have been, because ‘the black crows got no place for women’. (Robb never refers to her in the female, in a quick reread of the scene, so I’m wondering if that was meant to suggest he didn’t realize Osha and Hali were women, or didn’t realize the Night’s Watch only took men. Neither, unfortunately, seems likely - he should know the Watch doesn’t take women, since his uncle’s one, and the Starks actually respect them, and when Osha first speaks, it’s described as a woman’s voice - so the exchange reads as clumsy exposition.)

Nitpicking aside, what’s striking to me is how many characters who are described in detail don’t match.

Tyrion is most striking, but also most forgiveable - they’d never get an actor who looks like him, or make Dinklage (or another actor) look realistically like him, so better just to stick with the ‘dwarf’ aspect - especially since people focussed more on that aspect than his twisted legs or ugly face and mismatched eyes.

Ser Jorah is described as large, hairy, and dark. Iain Glen is slender, fair, and not especially hirsute. Not especially a big deal, but a striking difference.

The Night’s Watch in general seem healthier and less repellent in the show. Yoren, in particular. It makes the fact that Yoren has survived however many years on the Wall make more sense when he’s not depicted in a way that makes you wonder how he could swing a sword or pull a bow.

Robb and Bran and Rickon, like Ser Jorah, took pretty much an opposite tack from the book descriptions - none of them have Cat’s colouring, leaving only Sansa with the Tully look - Robb might have the blue eyes, but that’s it - and, really, he looks more like Ned than Jon does.

(And add me as another who thinks Cat looks perfectly fine.)

29

Another striking visual departure from the books: Syrio Forel. In the books, he’s bald. In the show, he’s anything but. (Not that I care: the actor playing him is doing a fantastic job!)

Count me in as another who thinks TV-Cat looks great.

30

That’s exactly the build I picture for Brienne. Good find!

I really like the actress that plays Cat. Unlike a lot of people it seems, what I got out of the books for Cat was exactly what’s portrayed - a woman who was a great beauty in her youth but who is aging. I think the actress is very pretty, I don’t get the “hag” thing at all.

31

My sequence of events could be off a little, but now that episode 7 has hit the internwebs…

Isn’t it a little too late for Sansa to screw Ned? I can’t remember well enough.

Also, as I’ve been bitching all along, Catelyn and Cersei are both supposed to be pretty damned attractive. Neither acrtress is. To be fair to Cat, she does look much better in the later episodes than she did in the first two. She really looked like a hag then. Sorry. I’m almost wondering, though, since Sansa’s look changed pretty heavily after those first two episodes, were there some revisions made to the production after the first two episodes?

Lyssa Arryn should be kind of dumpy, but she’s kind of bony instead.

Sansa’s one main excuse for being a naive retard in the books is that she’s just led such a sheltered life and is always so proper. In the series, she sure as hell doesn’t act properly toward her father when he does something she doesn’t like.

This is just me, but something about Littlefinger is too…modern looking.

And the tournament was lamelamelame. But I’ll chalk that one up to budget.

Well, she married Ned when she was…? I’m not going to look it up so I’m going to say 17. Robb should have been 15 at the start of the book. She she’s what, 32? 33? Even if they advanced her another 3 years like most people…I can’t find her age online, but I seriously doubt she’s 36ish years old.

-Joe

32

Agreed. It’s a been a superb adaptation so far. The writers have kept a lot of what makes the book great and they also have the chops to write new scenes which improve on the book. The Cersei-Robert scene is a prime example and the Varys-Littlefinger scene in the throne room is another.

I have to admit I fall in the camp which thinks Cat is too plain. The actress does a fine job but I had just pictured the character differently more along the lines of this cover.

33

This was discussed in the main spoiler thread. I think it was one of the few mistakes by the writers and I am not sure why they changed it. The Hound had already been established as a character and the whole story was so much more brutal and scary coming from him. The scene in the show didn’t make any sense; it was supposed to be this great secret but it was clear that Arya could hear every word.

34

So, something I can’t remember.

As we who have read the books know, Ned is seriously screwed by Sansa telling the Lannisters something she shouldn’t have.

Since we know that Ned

SPOILER SPOILER NO GOD DAMNED BITCH SPOILER SPOILER

is going to spend the rest of his life in a cell, up until there is no more ‘rest of his life’…did the opportunity get missed?

Guess I just can’t remember the sequence of events.

-Joe

35

It really is a shame that they’re smothering his character so much – he’s so interesting. Here’s one of the greatest warriors in the land willingly putting himself at the beck and call of an embarrassingly petty and sociopathic child, for what reason? That would be such fertile ground for storytelling (as it is in the book) and would make him a really formidable character with great presence in the show when he just stands in a corner. And then when he starts behaving “not ungently” with Sansa, that contrast in his behavior would be even more intriguing. As he is now, it wouldn’t really have much of an impact.

Goddammit, show, don’t ruin this.

36

She’s fine, based on everything up to Crown of Gold. I think it’ll go like this:

1) Ned’s already told the girls they’re going home.
2) He’s gonna call Cersei into the Grove and tell her what he knows, to give her a chance to flee.
3) Cersei’s gonna start her marriage’s end-game.
4) Sansa’s gonna go tell the queen how much she wants to marry Joffrey, but daddy’s shipping her home–can’t she ask the king to order daddy to let her stay?
5) King dies.
6) Cersei begin’s Ned’s end-game.

37

Well, at this point I don’t know if we should avoid TV SHOW spoilers…

So, if you haven’t seen Episode 7 (You win or you die) you might not want to read the below…

All six happened. Sansa hasn’t said a word, and I might be wrong, but she might not even have appeared in the episode

So, looks like she’s not so good as far as matching up anymore.

-Joe

38

Sansa didn’t do anything ‘on screen’ in the book. We found out about it - second-hand - when she had a POV chapter after Ned had been taken.

Ned tells them they’re going home in a Sansa chapter, then Ned gets a chapter, where he figures everything out (covered in Crown of Gold) and goes to Cercei with his accusations, then a Dany chapter, then another Ned chapter, with his deal with Littlefinger, then Jon, then Ned again, bringing us up to where the show has (seemingly) got to as of You Win Or You Die, then Arya gets a chapter continuing the plot, then finally another Sansa chapter, where we find out what she did (told by Cercei). Nothing’s been skipped, and I see no reason why this should have been done differently.

39

OK then. Like I said, I didn’t remember specific sequences.

However, unless I’m forgetting something we haven’t seen any flashbacks in the show and I think they’re avoiding them on purpose. Maybe we’ll get to find out about it when Cersei or Joffrey thanks Sansa for all her help.

-Joe

40

I haven’t read the books, so I’m just asking questions:

Is there going to be a lot of supernaturalness? It seems hinted at, but so far pretty grounded.

Am I supposed to like Tyrion, does he turn out to be a good guy? Cuz I love him. (I have a thing for Peter Dinklage, who is WAY the hottest dwarf I’ve ever seen or HEARD in my life…I’d do him no problem.)

I read somewhere that winter will last FOUR DECADES??? Ummm…well, alright, it’s just a story, but I like some degree of believability: in the books is there any attempt to explain how animals, much less people, survive four decades of winter without any plant life? Are all creatures carnivorous, similar to the oceans (which of course do have a smattering of plant eaters but really it’s mostly big animals eating smaller animals.)